New Wada president Sir Craig Reedie reveals how he will tackle the growing problem of drug cheats

Sir Craig Reedie

Sitting down to talk with Sir Craig Reedie at the scene of his election, the rhetoric at the top of Wada is set to change, writes Ben Rumsby.  

He has quietly worked his way up to being the most powerful Briton in sport.

So it is perhaps fitting that Sir Craig Reedie's election as president of the World Anti-Doping Agency has been greeted with so little fanfare. 

After all, the 72-year-old's CV speaks for itself: International Badminton Federation president, British Olympic Association chairman, London 2012 director, and vice-president of the International Olympic Committee - the first British member of its board since 1961. 

That is even without mentioning his work fighting drugs in sport as a founder director of Wada and a driving force behind the formation of UK Anti-Doping. 

Whatever the arena, Reedie has known how to win friends and influence people for almost as long as Dale Carnegie's famous book has been in print. Yet, the Wada presidency has been about anything but winning friends since the agency came into being 14 years ago. 

Dick Pound, and then John Fahey, each cast themselves as Eliot Ness, painting a black-and-white world of good and evil in which you were either with them or with the dopers. 

Sitting down to talk to Reedie at the scene of his election, the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg's most genteel suburb, it is immediately clear that, come Jan 1, the rhetoric at the top of Wada is set to change.
"My instincts throughout all of my sports career has been rather more consensual than combative,” Reedie told Telegraph Sport. 

Read more @ www.telegraph.co.uk